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Five of 7 Colorado House members vote to kill farm bill

This May 15, 2013 file photo shows stacks of paperwork awaiting members of the House Agriculture Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 15, 2013. (J. Scott Applewhite, Associated Press)

WASHINGTON — Call it the contradictory — or confounding — nature of American politics that elected officials can enthusiastically tout ideas they successfully got tucked into a massive agricultural bill — and then turn around and vote against the actual piece of legislation.

Such was the story Thursday for five of Colorado's seven House members — all of whom supported critical parts of the massive $940 billion farm bill but ultimately cast a vote to handily kill it.

Republican Reps. Cory Gardner of Yuma and Scott Tipton of Cortez were the only Colorado House members who supported the legislation.

Democratic Reps. Ed Perlmutter, Diana DeGette and Jared Polis and Republican Reps. Doug Lamborn and Mike Coffman all voted to support dozens of amendments in the bill, but all voted against it.

The farm bill would have chopped $20 billion from the food stamp program and reformed direct payments for farmers. It would have delivered wildfire aid to places hardest hit and would have offered assistance to Colorado farmers suffering in the drought get federal help.

The Senate passed a compromise bill earlier this month that cut $4 billion from food stamps and reformed the way agricultural subsidies are doled out.

Minutes before the final vote, Polis was upbeat about the four amendments he successfully shepherded through passage, saying "this is what the legislative process should be."

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His amendments included a proposal to allow universities to grow industrial hemp and additional research into antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

He also supported a bipartisan amendment that would have prioritized fire-damaged areas to get watershed protection funds.

"I'm very happy I got this stuff in!" the Boulder Democrat said. "But I'm not a fan of the farm bill. I'm not a fan of our byzantine, Soviet-style agricultural policy."

When pressed what he meant by that, Polis said he didn't believe government should have any hand in dairy prices, just like it doesn't have a say in "bananas or flowers."

(An amendment to fix the dairy prices problem was passed, but is now dead due to the ultimate failure of the farm bill.)

Lamborn, of Colorado Springs, supported 20 amendments of the farm bill, including the watershed protection money for areas damaged by fires.

Ultimately, though, Lamborn said the $20.5 billion in cuts to the food stamps program was not enough.

"This was a tough vote," he said. "While I supported many of the reforms to the food stamp program in the bill, in the end they didn't go far enough."

The fate of the work in the House on the farm bill was unclear Thursday.

Gardner, whose 4th Congressional District a few years ago was the 11th-most rural in the country, said after the vote he was "terribly disappointed."

He laid blame on Democrats, though half the Republicans within the Colorado caucus didn't support it either.

"I don't speak for them," Gardner said. "I will not give up pitching to fight for rural America. ... The fact the votes didn't materialize is a reflection of partisan games. I'm not happy with the outcome of the vote."

Tipton also called the vote "a missed opportunity."

"This was not a perfect bill, but a good first step toward reform that would have eliminated or consolidated more than 100 government programs," he said. "These would have been the largest reforms since 1996, and they were good first steps."

Kathy Underhill, executive director for Hunger Free Colorado, urged members to vote against the bill because of the food stamp cuts, which could have kicked 55,710 out of 510,441 Coloradans on food assistance off the program.